The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s much-vaunted propaganda machine is producing just a fraction as many videos and images as it was two years ago as the jihadist group comes under growing pressure on the battlefield, a new report has found.

“It is clear that the organisation has been forced to cut back these activities in response to the increasing amount of counter-terrorism pressure brought to bear,” researchers at the Combating Terrorism Center concluded.

Furqan was responsible for producing some of the group’s most graphic execution videos, including the beheadings of British and American journalists and aid workers, the US said.

While much Western attention on Isil propaganda has focused on their most violent productions, the West Point study found that more than half of the 9,000 videos, pictures and tweets it reviewed focused on non-violent activities.

Relatively little of Isil's total propaganda output focuses on violence

Around 52 per cent of the group’s output was dedicated to presenting “everyday life” inside the so-called caliphate.

The propaganda tried to give a positive image of how Isil governed and to show families living normal lives, including going swimming and visiting amusement parks.

Only around nine per cent of its total output included images of graphic violence or its aftermath.

This emphasis on daily life was what made Isil different to previous jihadist groups: rather than asking potential recruits to attack targets in the West, Isil asked them move to Syria in Iraq and begin new lives with their families.

“Clearly it is trying to portray itself as something more than just a fighting organization,” the study found.

However, the study found that Isil cut back on this type of non-military propaganda as it began to lose territory in the face of international airstrikes and advances by Syrian and Iraqi ground troops.

In the final months of the study, researchers found that propaganda related to daily life in the caliphate had dwindled to almost nothing but the group continued to produce propaganda about its armed struggle.

The decline is evidence that Isil is “under significant pressure” and struggling to find the manpower and resources to keep up its past rates of propaganda production, the study found.